Elaine Loughlin: Simon Harris will not be allowed to forget past failings

Over the weekend, the Taoiseach-in-waiting provided big thinking on housing with a proposal to deliver 250,000 homes by 2030.

However, how exactly that might happen has yet to be fleshed out and there was no mention of the eye-catching figure in Tuesday's Dáil speech.

With his wife, two young children, and family looking on, there were pledges to increase prison spaces, but again no detail on exact numbers or timelines.

Focusing on security, there were promises to restore pride in our capital city, however, the new Taoiseach strayed away from specifics apart from a reference to a Dublin City taskforce.

Picking at the many holes in his grand plan, Holly Cairns asked Mr Harris to provide detail on who might be sitting on the taskforce? What resources will they be given? And if he has an idea of the specific issues it might aim to tackle or indeed the timeline for this work?

"Party of law and order 'my eye'," proclaimed Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald accusing Fine Gael of underinvesting in community development.

But more than any other area, the opposition know that health is an area where Mr Harris is vulnerable for a number of reasons.

As well as having to address a number of lingering issues, including the National Children's Hospital, Mr Harris will have to build a relationship with his health minister, not an easy task when that person — Stephen Donnelly — is also his constituency rival.

With significant protests planned for this weekend to highlight the constant overcrowding and shortfall in care across the Midwest region, University Hospital Limerick is an immediate problem that he must get on top of.

It is often very dangerous to make a promise in politics, especially one you are unable to keep.

A commitment made back in 2017 that no child would wait longer than four months for scoliosis surgery has undoubtedly tainted Mr Harris and was an issue that Ms McDonald and Ms Cairns were keen to remind him of on his first day as Taoiseach.

Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín told Mr Harris that seven years on, in Temple Street and Crumlin alone, 55 children are waiting more than one year for scoliosis surgery.

The theme was picked up by Labour leader Ivana Bacik who hit out at "lofty promises, devoid of substance," before accusing Mr Harris of boasting about his party’s achievements in healthcare.

"That praise jars with the experiences of so many people who have told me about spending hours or even days on hospital trolleys. 

"It jars with the experiences of healthcare staff who are running on empty, suffering the consequences of low pay and the HSE recruitment embargo."

Ms McDonald claimed that under Mr Harris's watch, hospital overcrowding had spun out of control, the trolley crisis escalated, and treatment waiting lists hit 1m patients for the very first time.

"On his watch, the scandalous cost of the National Children's Hospital grew and grew and today, the most expensive hospital in the world has yet to open its doors and has yet to treat a single child.

"Perhaps those who remember Deputy Harris's term as health minister best are the families of children with scoliosis who were promised that they would not wait longer than four months for life-changing surgery, a promise that was disgracefully broken again and again," she told the Dáil.

Mr Harris cannot change the past and the opposition has already made it clear thathis time in he alth will be a key point of attack.